illustration flowers

I don’t have hyacinths in the garden, but I bought some forced bulbs and they ere just beautiful at their peak.I sketched them in watercolor, but struggled. So I left it for a while. Slowly but surely the blooms began to topple over, like hyacinths do and they started turning brownish in their color. no waiting anymore, I had to paint or lose them.

Some subject are painted again and again and they never look the same, like sunflowers. I have done sunflowers in 2007, then in 2010, 2011, 2014 and now again. they are just wondeful to paint/sketch…the colour alone gives me huge kick when slapping it onto the paper. Sometimes my painting/sketching didn’t work, but I enjoyed painting sunflowers every time. So, before the season runs out, I need to get some sunflowers done in oil…looking forward to that.

The agapanthus in my garden are blooming profusely and beautiful in their blues ad whites. To my amazement I realized yesterday i haven’t painted any agapanthus yet. I gave it three attempts. The first attempt is probably still the best , even though it is not what I am after. Most of the time that I try two or more attempts of the same subject, I find that the first attempt is the best.I have experienced it so many times. I think it is probably an instinctive reaction to what you see for the first time in front of you..in order to capture that is…and as we all know… first, spontaneous reactions are always instinctive.

Agapanthus 1: Not great composition, but the first attempt and probably the best of three.

Agapanthus 2: The values way too dark and the overall effect too messy.

Agapanthus 3: Third attempt and I think it turned out the second best of the three efforts. I quite like the lightness of the blooms, but the overall effect is a bit stiff.

I’ve mentioned how slow I am in January. I fiddle everywhere without getting anything done. With aw eek of January left, I decided to give myself a project for this week. I always work better towards a deadline with objectives and projects. I have some forced bulbs and for these few days I will render them in more ways than one. My technique is busy changing, which is of course a good thing, but in the process of that change it is without definition and all over the place. Experimenting with brush and line may just open up a new door for a February project.

So the first bulbs are the hyacinths. Lovely to look at, but they really cornered me. I did several of which I show only these two.

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